The invention relates to mobile telecommunications systems. In particular, aspects of the invention relate to methods and systems for automatically and/or selectively initiating communications among mobile users in a telecommunications system that has the ability to determine a geographic location of mobile users.
Mobile telecommunication units (MUs) such as cell phones and other related devices have become a pervasive part of our culture. Throughout the several years that MUs have been in widespread use, they have been treated largely as a movable version of a standard telephone. In particular, a main objective of current systems has been to hide the fact that the user of the MU is in fact mobile, by providing a standard telephone number for reaching the MU regardless of location. Thus, MUs are typically used in a manner so as to conceal the location of the mobile user to make it appear to the outside world that the unit is a traditional stationary unit (SU). Similarly, when telecommunication system users (users) place phone calls using MUs, they dial traditional telephone numbers as if they were in their home location, making call placement appear to users of MUs as if they were in their home cities, regardless of their actual location.
Of course the approximate location of an MU is always known to the telecommunication infrastructure in the form of which cell base station the MU is communicating with (e.g., as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,561 (Alanara et al.)). A prime motivation for being able to access such information is to determine the location of MU users who place calls to Emergency-911 call centers or are otherwise in distress. In order to improve the effectiveness of Emergency-911 services in particular, more accurate position information is being made available via the telecommunication infrastructure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,045 (Castelloe et al.) teaches the use of combining Global Positioning System (GPS) information with a telecommunication infrastructure to accurately determine the position of an MU, whereas U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,434 (Seraj) teaches the use of low powered beacons scattered throughout MU usage areas. But, regardless of the technology used, the end result is that telecommunication systems are rapidly being provided with an ability to accurately determine the geographic location of an individual MU.
In conventional telecommunication systems, a telephone call is initiated by having one user dial a number to establish a connection with another user. Recent technology trends have evolved the notion of establishing a connection to become more sophisticated using, for example, a monitor of a stock price to send a paging message when there is a price change. However, these other ways of establishing connections do not take into account the location of the person either establishing the connection or the location of the person with whom the connection is being established.
These other ways of establishing connections also do not take into account the inter-relationships of people. For example, an acquaintance graph may be used to illustrate social connections between individuals. An example of a portion of an acquaintance graph is shown in FIG. 13. Nodes on the graph represent individuals and arcs indicate that the individuals are acquaintances, or that they have met one another.
The number of degrees of separation, or xe2x80x9chopsxe2x80x9d on a social acquaintance graph between two individuals, generally tends to be a small number. Put another way, if the network of friends and acquaintances of every person were drawn out into a single large acquaintance graph as a set of nodes (people) and arcs (personal relationships), it would not take very many arc traversals through the network to get from any one individual to another. This concept is often attributed to Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, in the form of the statement that there are only six degrees of separation between any two people. This notion was being exploited by the web site www.sixdegrees.com, before its demise on Dec. 31, 2000.
While the notion of degrees of separation freedom is frequently cast in the form of determining a minimum-hop path via an acquaintance graph for two predetermined people, it also has relevance in that for any randomly selected group of people it would seem likely that there are acquaintance graph paths shorter than length six present (i.e., while six hops tends to connect any two people, many people can be connected in fewer hops). In particular, if the group is selected based on common characteristics, interests, or geographic location, there may be short acquaintance graph paths that pass through shared clubs, alumni organizations, civic groups, or the like. However, acquaintance graphs are not presently being used to initiate connections between mobile users.
In a first aspect of the invention, there is a method for initiating a telecommunications connection. The method includes the step of connecting a first telecommunications unit (TU) to a second TU when a predetermined criteria is met. The predetermined criteria includes the first and second TUs being within a predetermined distance of each other, and a first user associated with the first TU being connected to a second user associated with the second TU in a graph representing relationships among users.
In a second aspect of the invention, there is a computer readable medium for storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to perform a set of steps for initiating a telecommunications connection. The set of steps includes the step of connecting a first telecommunications unit (TU) to a second TU when a predetermined criteria is met. The predetermined criteria includes the first and second TUs being within a predetermined distance of each other, and a first user associated with the first TU being connected to a second user associated with the second TU in a graph representing relationships among users.
In a third aspect of the invention, there is a system for initiating a telecommunications connection. The system includes a processor and memory for storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform a set of steps. The set of steps includes the step of connecting a first telecommunications unit (TU) to a second TU when a predetermined criteria is met. The predetermined criteria includes the first and second TUs being within a predetermined distance of each other, and a first user associated with the first TU being connected to a second user associated with the second TU in a graph representing relationships among users.
In some embodiments, the first and second users are required to have less than a maximum threshold degree of separation within the graph.
In yet other embodiments, the predetermined distance may be responsive to the degree of separation between the first and second users.
In some embodiments, the graph is an acquaintance graph. In other embodiments, the graph is a genealogical tree. Each graph may be associated with a different maximum threshold degree of separation.
In some embodiments, attribute information associated with each user may be used to filter connections.
In some embodiments, the connection may be automatically initiated when the predetermined criteria is met. In other embodiments, the connection may be initiated responsive to a request by the first user.
In some embodiments, the connection may be suppressed when either user indicates that the TU associated with that user is unavailable for connections based on relationship graphs.